Reviews

The hunting people on an island theme has been so overdone that I don't usually bother with the genre. But this one had Casper Van Dien and Mickey Rourke, so I thought I'd give it a chance. Bad mistake.

I don't think the rest of this actually qualifies as a spoiler, but out of an abundance of caution:

Spoiler alert

The first half of the movie was nothing but generic incel drivel that could easily have been copied verbatim from any number of Twitter threads or YouTube comment sections. Given that the premise of the movie was so-called "alpha males" hunting women, misogyny was expected from the bad guys. However, this was not only eye-rollingly bad, but dragged on way too long.

And there are so many things in this movie that are just .. stupid is the only word that truly fits. They made a big deal about the masks on the wall of the lodge but no one ever wore them. They kept showing close-ups of cameras ("camouflaged" with what looked like the really fake plastic ivy your grandma drapes over the mantle at Christmas) in the woods, but no one ever watched the monitors. Despite being really busy running around in the forest being the hunted/hunter, the protagonist's outfit kept inexplicably changing. My eight and nine year old nephews had better fight choreography when they played pro-wrestler/Godzilla in the backyard. There are lots of deadly traps in the woods even though there are a number of first time hunters and dogs running around that could just as easily spring them as the hunted (not to mention that using such traps would pretty much defeat the purpose of the hunters proving that they were stronger/smarter/ faster/whatever than their prey). The heroes kept using the "Let's split up! It'll be faster!" plot device with predictable results.

Basically, the plot, dialogue, and action scenes were truly awful. Don't bother.

I really liked the books, so I was very much looking forward to the series. Even after the first few episodes, I continued to try to give it a chance. I did my best to forget about the books and view the series on its own merits. But the sad fact of the matter is that the series just isn't very good.

As is so often the case in book adaptations, the screenwriters decided to completely dispose of major plot elements and substitute their own "vision." This can be a good thing, just look at The Expanse.

Here, though, it's mostly just sad and perhaps a bit pathetic.

Spoilers (for those who read the books):

In a pointless added subplot involving Moraine helping the red ajah and others bring Logain to the White Tower (and completely abandoning to their own devices the people she had just spent twenty years searching for, penniless people who had never been out of their small, isolated village), there was a bit of dialogue about how men who can channel can't see the weaves of female Aes Sedai and vice versa (which is true to the books). However, a few minutes later, Logain shielded his eyes from the brightness of a woman channeling. There are a couple of other scenes where it appears that people who shouldn't be able to see weaves, do. Do the showrunners not have access to continuity proof readers? Oh, and they added the Logain scenes instead of having Rand meet Min in Baerlon and Elayne, Elaida and Gawyn in Caemlyn and having Perrin meet Elyas. Major plot elements cut out for drek.

In the books, Mat was a trickster archetype, mischievous but with a code of honor. In the series, he's a low life thief who would look right at home in a trailer park inhabited solely by meth addicts.

In the books, it was abundantly clear that no one who didn't directly serve the dark one would intentionally do harm to an Aes Sedai. It wasn't just out of fear, but out of respect for the three oaths and the political influence of the White Tower. Even White Cloaks didn't dare hurt one. In the series, the White Cloaks burn Aes Sedai at the stake with impunity, and despite a scene in which a small group of Aes Sedai blow up an army, the Aes Sedai do nothing about it, directly, politically or otherwise.

In the books, the way gates were grown by Ogier using an artifact given to them by the male Aes Sedai during the Breaking (but before those men went completely mad). The gates looked like a wall of plants made of stone and could be opened by anyone who twisted the right leaf. In the series, Moraine asks Loial, an Ogier, to guide them through the Ways, showing that the series creators still intend to have the Ogier connected with the way gates. But the way gate looked like a pair of obelisks built by amateur masons, and Moraine opened it with the power. Ogier can't channel. Having them connected with way gates that require channeling to use is just dumb.

In the books, both the foretelling that started Moraine and the Amyrlin looking for the Dragon Reborn (which was something along the lines of "He is reborn! He is reborn at the foot of Dragon Mount! He lies in the snow and cries like the thunder! He burns like the sun!"), and the Prophecies of the Dragon were gender specific. This was rather crucial to the plot for a number of reasons, for example one of the big obstacles the Dragon Reborn faced was that everyone feared him because they believed he was doomed to eventually go mad and break the world again. This fear wouldn't apply to a woman, as women can channel without going insane.

I rather like the idea that Egwene could be the Dragon Reborn, but given the foretelling and the prophecies, Moraine thinking a woman (or anyone a few years older or younger than Mat/Rand/Perrin) was the Dragon Reborn doesn't really make any sense.

Thom doesn't play nearly as big of a role in the early part of the series as he did in the books. He didn't even get a chance to teach Rand to play the flute and Mat to juggle. But hey - we got a couple of silly Logain and Whitecloak scenes and a few additional characters who died before they could be developed, so who needs important characters like Thom, Min, Elyas, Elayne, Elaida and Gawyn? Also, even with a limited presence, I would have thought that they would have cast someone who can sing in the role of a bard. While on the subject of Thom - a guitar? Really?

One tiny thing that bothers me way more than it should is that I always pictured the Aes Sedai rings as simple, elegant circles shaped like a serpent eating its own tail. The ones in the series are gaudy baubles that look like something a ten year old might have bought at Claire's Boutique back in the 80's.

I don't even want to talk about what the series did to poor Perrin.

This has become more of a complaint than a review, so I'll stop now.

There are things that are well done. I love the way that channeling looks, and how the taint on the male half of the one power is portrayed. The fades are scary looking. Other than a Thom who can't sing and meth head Mat, the casting was well done. The huge number of spankings that occurred in the books have thankfully been removed. The Traveling Folk scenes were excellent, and the way of the leaf was explained better in the series than in the books.

But the dialogue, particularly in the parts the screenwriters made up, is mediocre at best and tedious at worst. So much of the plot from the books has been removed that what is left doesn't make a lot of sense. Modern swear words don't fit the setting. The scenery is rather low rent despite the big budget.

All in all, the series is a prime example of film makers doing what they seem to do best -- taking something loved by millions and then crapping all over it.

For the first 75% of this movie, I was tense, on the edge of my seat and intrigued -- everything a person is supposed to be watching a horror/suspense movie. The acting was great, especially as everyone in the film basically had to play two very different characters. The soundtrack was perfect. Then came the big reveal of the underlying cause, and it ruined everything. As my friend and I were leaving the theater, we looked at each other and simultaneously said, "Wow, that was really dumb."

Spoilers below

************************************

The makers of this movie would have us believe that clones were made of, well, apparently everyone in a network of underground bunkers, and that the clones and bunkers were there, presumably using electricity and generating sewage, for thirty odd years without anyone above ground ever noticing. The clones were "tethered" to their above ground double, meaning that any movement made by the above ground person was mimicked by the clone. This was driven home by showing clones mimicking people riding roller coasters and other amusement park rides during one bunker scene (btw, the actors doing this scene were truly awesome). Nyong'o's "tethered" character talks to her counterpart about being forced to be with the "tethered" husband and have children because the above ground version of her character married and had children (for reasons I won't get into, this also runs contrary to the premise). The son even uses this property to dispose of his clone. Heck, the stated reason for the clones getting all stabby was to "untether" themselves from their above ground doubles and be free. In other words, one of the basic premises of the movie was that the clones didn't have much, if any, free will when it came to how and when they moved.

That said, the film doesn't even attempt to explain how the clones were able to avoid the "tethering" when the time came to get all stabby, i.e. the above ground people, who the "tethered" clones had to mimic, weren't running around stabbing people, so how could the "tethered" clones do so?

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for pretty much anything as long as the writer sticks to his premise. Here, all the action in the movie was counter to the stated premise, which, in my opinion, ruined the whole thing.

Also, and this is a minor point, the tethered people apparently survived in the bunkers after the scientists abandoned the experiment by eating rabbits. However, despite there being bunnies all over the place in the bunker scenes, there was never any sign of anything the bunnies could eat and no plausible means for the "tethered" clones to acquire such.

Another minor point, but every clone shown during the stabby part of the movie had identical scissors. Where could they possibly have gotten them? Are we supposed to assume that the scientists who abandoned the clones also left behind millions of scissors?

Finally, I'm not going to ruin the "big" twist at the end, but it was completely predictable and, although the music and the actor's facial expressions indicated that I was supposed to be freaked out in some way by it, it was of absolutely no consequence and changed nothing.

In short, great acting, great soundtrack, awful writing.

If I had known this was a "found footage" type of movie, I would have never watched it. Unfortunately, once I start watching a movie, I have to watch all of it. Rarely have I hated this compulsion more.

**** Spoilers ****

The movie starts with some narcissistic putz paying more attention to his camera than to his surroundings with the result that he and his pregnant wife are in a car accident, his wife loses their baby, and he loses an eye. In the accident scene, his right eye is obviously injured. In the very next scene, he has a patch over his left eye. Over the next five to ten minutes, the injury goes from right to left and back again a few times. One would think that someone involved with this production would have jotted something like "it's the right eye, idiots" on a post-it note or maybe the actor would have realized that something was amiss, but apparently not. This pretty much set the tone for the entire movie.

Obviously not having learned the dangers of ridiculous levels of narcissism from the accident that killed his unborn baby, the guy makes a prosthetic eye camera -- complete with epoxy and strands of ... stuff! Bet that felt good in his raw socket. He, the Mrs. and four friends then take a trip to a cabin in the woods. Overused cliché, anyone? Oddly enough, everyone seems perfectly content with letting the one person in their group without depth perception do all the driving.

What followed was a display of overacting rarely seen outside the confines of late night infomercials aired only on the really cheap channels, as our heroes raced back and forth through the woods and corn fields, cameras a-shaking', while aliens grabbed at them from the dark and took their clothes. Apparently this was an attempt at communication. Why beings capable of interstellar travel would be limited to the meager communication options of stripping people naked and leaving cryptic crop circles isn't explained. I would think that such an advanced species might realize that a simple, "I say, ol' chaps, that thing you found is ours, and we would like it back," would be more effective.

The final thing that made me groan was near the end when the guy was reviewing the video from his camera eye and came across footage of the accident at the start of the movie. You know, video from a time when both his eyes were real (although one was a bit deflated). I suppose he could have copied the video over to his eye from the camera he was using at the time of the accident, but why?

I would have given this movie one star, but the dog in it was really cute and gave a better performance in his thirty seconds of screen time than any of his human costars.

This movie can be summed up in a single word: awful. The performances were phoned in, the plot was weak, and the premise was ridiculous.

***** SPOILERS *****

The person who wrote this drivel apparently expected everyone to believe a number of complete implausibilities: that a catatonic boy who requires extreme care would be released to a home that lacks any accommodation for his condition other than an adjustable bed; that someone could convincingly fake being catatonic for six months; that despite his need to never be seen moving about, he also managed to slip his mother frequent doses of a tranquilizer that had been prescribed to him (we aren't shown how he managed this); that somehow the missing pills were never noticed during the six month period; that a raccoon rummaging in the garbage outside would wake her from her drug- induced sleep feeling compelled to investigate, but her supposedly catatonic son running around the house at night didn't disturb her a bit; and that the little boy trapped in the house only managed to make it to Naomi during the night when she was in drugged slumber and the fake catatonic was free to run around, not during the day when the fake catatonic had to sit passively in his chair or reveal his farce.

In my experience, the care the makers' of a movie take with the minor details shows how much they care about the production as a whole. Here, they apparently didn't give a f---. An unexpected visitor tells the mother that the huge storm raging outside has already deposited so much snow that the end of her driveway was blocked when the road was plowed. Yet a little while later, when she runs outside, her driveway appears freshly plowed and there is a well beaten path to a dock on a little lake or pond. Despite the supposedly raging winter storm, the dock is free of snow and ice. Although it is supposed to be bitterly cold, there is not so much as a crust of ice on the pond/lake. This list could go on and on, but that's enough.

In short, there are so many good movies out there, that it would be a shame to waste any time watching this one.

I enjoy a good outbreak story. This is not one of them. As you may have guessed from the title, the show is about the attempt to contain a viral outbreak in a major city. The disease is, of course, highly contagious and 100% lethal. It's a solid, tried and true premise. The pilot, which focused on the discovery of the disease, the investigation into the identity of "patient zero," and the initial effort to quarantine a large part of a large city, was reasonably well done and hooked me. Since the pilot, however, the show has nose-dived.

In this genre, I expect characters to panic and make mistakes. A bad judgment call here and there can really make the plot interesting. This goes beyond that. People within the quarantined area are allowed to move around as they please within the zone and actually do so. No effort is made to remove the bodies of those who succumb to the disease from the streets. Police enter buildings they suspect of being full of infected people with no more protection than a face visor. In fact, there's rarely a hazmat suit in sight. One of the very few police inside the quarantine area, a person who has frequent contact with all sorts of people, is also given the job of cremating the bodies of those who died at the hospital, a task he undertakes with no more protection than a pair of latex gloves. The authorities march and carry infected people through the streets without taking any precautions to keep them from spreading the disease to everyone they pass. Despite the presence of a highly contagious disease, the residents within the quarantine zone are all called to a single area to obtain food. The show's writers would also have us believe that direct study of the virus would be left solely to the only doctor left at the only hospital inside the quarantine zone. The list of dumb decisions that go against common sense and basic principles of self preservation goes on and on and on to the point that it's impossible to suspend disbelief.

The laughable quarantine plot line isn't the show's only weakness. The dialogue is often poorly written, interpersonal conflicts seem forced and don't ring true, and many of the characters are one dimensional.

I had high hopes for this series, but after watching episode seven earlier tonight, I don't think I'll be watching any more.